Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice. And ic cyðe eow, þæt ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage. Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu and þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghwær godes lof upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan wolde. Nu ne wandode ic na minum sceattum, þa while þe eow unfrið on handa stod: nu ic mid godes fultume þæt totwæmde mid minum scattum. Þa cydde man me, þæt us mara hearm to fundode, þonne us wel licode: and þa for ic me sylf mid þam mannum þe me mid foron into Denmearcon, þe eow mæst hearm of com: and þæt hæbbe mid godes fultume forene forfangen, þæt eow næfre heonon forð þanon nan unfrið to ne cymð, þa hwile þe ge me rihtlice healdað and min lif byð. (A proclamation by King Canute dated 1020)
I don’t know how you’d be able to build a printing press. But if I could survive the accusations of being a witch, and the elements and disease, I’d try to learn the language as quickly as possible, and then teach people how to read and write–knowing German and French would help in that (and what good would a printing press be anyway when most people can’t read)?. Poor people might appreciate that enough to put me up and feed and clothe me, as long as I helped out with the labor.
I’d also teach them to boil water before drinking it, providing they had vessels to do that.
If I were in London, and if I could gain the confidence of enough people, I’d teach the concept of the assembly line.
I’d become a village knitting teacher faster than I could learn to say “Hello” in Old English. Or maybe I’d just monopolize the craft, if I were feeling strategic and greedy at the time. If nobody takes to it, then I can just use my modest mathematical skills and literacy to eke out a living like many other posters here.
But honestly, what culture wouldn’t want to learn a textile art that’s so much more portable and less wasteful than weaving? I think I’d do pretty well. When everyone knows how to knit, I’ll just whip out socks, or seamless sweaters, or lace, or fair isle, and so on, and I think I can string them along for years.
Really? Doesn’t seem all that hard to me to build a basic moveable type press. I’m not saying I could do it in a week, but given enough time it wouldn’t be all that difficult.
I’m guessing paper wasn’t all that common back then, either, so you’d have to figure that out as well. But once again, given that you’d have a monopoly on the market, it’d probably be worth your time.
I doubt it. You would have to learn again how to write, since nor the tools, nor the writing would be familiar. And as previously mentioned, you wouldn’t master the language to begin with. You wouldn’t know how to use an abacus, either (And good luck telling him about double-ledger entries). And you would know nothing about the customs, laws, taxes, etc… You’d pretty useless to a merchant.
Plus, I doubt a merchant would need a scribe, anyway. In northern Europe the literacy rate was extremely low, and very few written documents used, even for legal purposes (contracts or wills, for instance). You’d have to go to southern Europe (southern France, Spain, Italy) to find a place were writing was (very relatively) widespread outside the Church.
Like it wasn’t enough, there wasn’t much trade going on in Europe at this time. Assuming the community you end up in doesn’t live mostly in autarky, the local merchant doesn’t need no fucking scribe. Real (long distance) traders would be few and far between. Again, you’d probably have better luck in southern Europe, in Mediterranean ports, for instance.
On the other hand, why settle for a merchant? If I were sent back to Paris around 1008, I might as well go for the king. At this time, he wouldn’t have been much more than a local lord in a rather small city or staying in a nearby town, and probably quite accessible. A weird but seemingly sane individual popping up in the street, and telling weird stories might very well be brought to him, even unwillingly, in quick order. I guess it would be as easy to meet him as it would be nowadays to meet the mayor of a small town. Maybe even more so, given the lack of bureaucracy, police, and such…
Not really. It seems so because a number of famous people lived to a rather old age, but that’s a bad sample, first because famous people generally came from a well-off background and more importantly they generally became famous precisely because they had a long life hence the time to accomplish a lot.
I checked it once by looking at the French kings from 1000 to 1500 (no violent death, not counting the king who died in infancy). I don’t remember the exact figure, but on average, they died in their 40s.
I did the maths again : they lived on average to be 46 and only two made it to 60 (and no more than 60). Typically, they died in their early 50s, with some passing away in their 20s, so lowering the average lifespan. So, if even the kings couldn’t expect to reach 60, a random guy probably would be out of luck too.
One thing no one so far has mentioned is that an average person from our times would be something of a physical freak 1000 yrs ago.
Freakishly tall - most people frm that time were under 5 ft tall. (Due to poor die
t and harsh living conditions)
Smooth skin, with little scarring from trauma or disease, sunburn, frostbite, etc.
No missing fingers, eyes, ears, either.
Jeans and a T Shirt would be considered clothing of extreme finery.
So, if a giant, speaking a foriegn language, with unnaturally smooth skin and incredible teeth showed up at your next block party… what would you think of him/her?
Why on earth would poor people appreciate to be taught to read and write? What possible use could they have for such a skill? Even in the 19th century, many farmers wouldn’t see the point of sending their children to school, and by this time literacy was both widespread and very useful.
In 1008 almost nobody would have had any use for that, and would even have had access to written material. As I wrote previously, there usually wasn’t even written legal documents in northern Europe, so even relatively well-off and relatively important people would have no use for literacy, and no time to waste on it.
And how good are you at writing Caroline letters with a goose feather, anyway?
The only use I can see for being able to read and write would be to demonstrate that you are yourself educated and literate to other educated and literate people.
I believe that Gutenberg and other people who tried to build moveable character presses ran in a number of technical problems. So, I suspect that it wasn’t as obvious as it seems. Plus, by this time, presumably, they had access to better tools than in 1008.
The Xativa, Spain paper mill is thought by many to date back to 1009. Even if it didn’t, paper was around long before 1000 AD. If you had knowledge of it, you could probably rustle some up.
Same with the printing press. Knowing it’s possible and the impact that it would make would be significant motivation to figure it out IMO. It’s one thing to set out building something you think maybe might work and maybe you can make a living at; it’s something else to set out making something that you know works and will probably be a Big Deal.
Wow. I would have a significant problem picking up this kind of language and add to that the fact that I would be a woman in jeans and sneakers I would probably be stoned within hours of my arrival.
I worked quite a bit with historical documents from England from 500-600 years ago, so I’ll try to extrapolate.
One recurring feature of the documents I used was that lots of people who were nominally educated by the standards of the time (i.e., they could read and write in English, and might have some knowledge of Latin) had almost no basic math skills whatsoever. In churchwardens’ accounts you’d see entries like “Sold three chalices, 5s. each, 16s.” I’d say nine out of every ten churchwardens’ accounts and tax returns I read had an accounting error. Some of them were off by a few pounds or more; that would have been an entire year’s salary for some of the poorer parish priests. I suspect things were a lot worse in 1008.
So job #1 for me, after I’d mastered the language (and it wouldn’t necessarily be Old English, it would be medieval Latin–which I have some experience with–for the clergy) would be to teach a few government and church officials the basic concepts of math and accounting. Maybe if I was lucky I could head off some of the “pounds, shillings, pence, marks, florins, farthings” nonsense.
One other thing to mention about Old English–it’s not that difficult a language to learn. My ex-wife was fluent in it, as much as one can be now, and she felt it was one of the easiest of the nine languages she’d grappled with. Once you get past the odd spelling, it’s not that bad.
Wikipedia states that this Spanish mill was founded in 1120. Sure, wikipedia isn’t a very reliable source, but it’s consistent with what I remember : paper beginning to be used and produced in Europe mostly during the 14th century. The same wikipedia article mentions that the first successful paper mill in England began to be operated as late as 1588.
Hmmm…no…Even assuming that you would be right about it being produced in Spain in 1009, it obviously wasn’t around before it began to be produced. Except if you were able to travel to Persia, or to whatever other location where paper was available at the time, you couldn’t find paper.
Survival skills I’ll give you, but I have a great deal of experience with Latin. I wager I could get decent at speaking it within a week or three, and until then (if I managed to get to people who spoke it) I could probably manage with writing – not pen on parchment, or hide, or whatever, but maybe rod in clay or dust or whatever.
Medieval people did not have horrible teeth. The common crew of the Mary Rose was dug up and they wouldn’t fare to badly with modern Brit’s (yeah, yeah, put the smirk aside). The real rot of modern times is thanks to sugar, impossible to get in the Europe at the time. Sure there was honey, but for the common peasant that was pretty rare.